Minnesota Windmills Don’t Work When It’s Cold

Scott Hennen • January 31, 2010

Restoration Project Completes On The UK's Last Remaing Thatched Windmill

Well it’s NOT that you would want electricity during the cold and dark of Minnesota Winters.

This is a perfect example of what wind energy is about. It’s not about saving money, it’s not about making clean power. To it’s proponents it’s about making it look like you’re “Doing Something.”
The story says that they are looking at adding heaters to the hydraulic system so that they will work when it gets cold. As Ed Morrisey points out, heating the hydraulic oil when it’s cold is going to take away a lot of the net energy value of these windmills. Since you’ll have to run these heaters even when the winds not blowing one must assume that we’ll be burning coal to produce clean energy the annointed can sit in the dark and feel smug about.
Wind energy is a fraud. Wind gets a massive subsidy and the power companies still want to charge you extra for it. Without the mandates put on us by idiots there wouldn’t be any of it.
How much energy did it cost to erect that useless monument to the stupidity of the chattering classes? We’re all poorer when resources get mis allocated because of government intervention.

Tags: Domestic Issues

http://Array sayanything-43

Does that work on ants?
sayanything-5371

Ole and Sven, deys a pair of real smart fellers, yah sure.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Exactly. Even if you’ve got a source of power like a natural gas powered
generator ready to go, you still have to build them both and keep them both
ready.

Wind power is a waste.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

So some scientists in California dug down 10 feet in San Francisco and found
some copper wire dating from before the big quake. From that they were able
to show that Californians had telephone service before 1906.

Then a scientist in New York dug down 15 feet and found copper wires buried.
From that they were able to prove that New Yorkers had telephone service in
the 1890′s.

Reading this Ole, a part time Norwegian Scientist, went out to the farm his
family settled way back when and dug down 20 feet and found nothing. From
that he was able to prove that North Dakotan’s had cell phones back in the
1870′s.
sayanything-342

The average windwill is only 18% efficient on a 24 hour scale. Big Whoop.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I think that they’re running ok, but still the economics still suck.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Could have used it 25 years earlier.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

North Dakota is one of the prime spots for wind power. That’s because
Minnesota sucks and Montana blows.

Still at best they don’t average 40% of their rated output.

http://www.minnkota.com/Pages/InfinityMonthly.htm

Pretty much a waste of money 60% of the time.
sayanything-5371

The average windwill is only 18% efficient on a 24 hour scale

18% efficient? I doubt it’s even that. E. Oregon is mostly a vast high desert steppe of rolling wheat fields with deep canyons and forested mountain ranges. In the wheat country there are thousands of these turbine towers put up in the last 6-8 years. Mostly they are idle, yet they are putting up ever more of the ugly things. Without subsidization none of them would be there.
farm4money

You couldn’t be more right …. the quickest generation system to put on line is HYDRO … your energy is stored till you pull the gate on the water. If you have to use wind power the only thing i think would work with it, would be hydro. The system as it stands now is a joke. Stillings is right on the mark here. Anyone wonder why the Democratic controled Federal subsidized REA coops are double down on this crap. BTW, the windgenerator blades ice up in frosty weather and need to be heated also
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I don’t run nor do I jog.

My fingers are in excellent shape though.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Nope, I said the internet would never be popular.
sayanything-5371

Thousands of these things have popped up all over E. Oregon, along with miles of transmission lines. Most of the time they are idle. They are an eyesore. Millions of tons of steel had to be smelted to make them and for what? Power made maybe 5% of the time?

Scratch a Green, find a Red. That’s what this is all about.
sayanything-12

LOL.

My big blooper was saying that internet porn would never catch on.
sayanything-3110

If they were turning they could not replace coal . I would have a small reactor in my back yard if the power company offered it as it would be cheaper but the up front cost would be to high. a reactor the size of a garbage can would supply maybe two or three homes in the same area.
this is about as good as the traffic lights freezing over and people were running red lights they could not see because the led’s do not produce any heat to keep the ice away from the lights . the additional cost of heating the lights will null the savings in the Winter months. good intentions are met with many realistic problems . The noise made by these windmills is enough to turn most away from wanting them in their back yards .
sayanything-5371

The concrete foundations are massive and will be left in place. Some archaeologist thousands of years from now will find them and be puzzled at what kind of idiots were in this civilization that would build useless massive things only to abandon them within a few years.
sayanything-13784

Install a block heater and just plug them in. These windmills are the most idiotic thing I have ever seen.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Would have saved me a lot of time digging through trashcans looking
for Playboys.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

That’ll be time to hold the environmental scam artists responsible for their
scam. Repossess their Prius and put them out there with a shovel digging up
the concrete.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

donchnoit.
sayanything-5371

Scratch a green, find a red. All BS based on false economy. Someday all of these wind turbines will come down. I’m thinking they will soon start to default on lease payments to farmers because they aren’t making enough to cover basic operating costs. Then the lawsuits will begin and the towers will come down. The steel recyclers will love it.
sayanything-12

I forget, Whistler, which one of these is you again?

Was it a blood relative of yours that said we’d never fly, that those darned horseless carriages would never catch on, or that we’d never reach the moon?

LOL.
bikebubba

So GM can put a lubricant in my wheel hubs that works quite well at 30 below, but the state of Minnesota apparently can’t find one to work at 20 degrees in a windmill? Am I getting that about right?

One would figure that someone would know a few decent “mechanical engineers” who would be able to help figure this out, but apparently not.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

What, does it get cold in Minnesota or something?
sayanything-164

When they selected the hydraulic oil to be used, they used the IPCC’s forecast for global temperatures. Based on those figures, it show be warm enough for them to work now…

What went wrong?
sayanything-277

Toot, Prius’s don’t run on air but apparently you do.
sayanything-8767

Why is it not mentioned that you still have to have base-load coal or oil backup for these silly things? And those plants have to be kept running (“idling”) ’cause it can take a day or two to fire them back up if they are shut off completely. It’s like saving gas by riding a bicycle to wherever while being followed by an automobile in case the bike breaks down.
sayanything-316

Scratch a Green, find a Red.

Interesting observation.

During the 1970′s, in Germany the GREENS movement was started under the leadership of a female, known affectionately as Petra.

The stink of it was that although the movement started off as one focused on the environment, it was infiltrated and taken over by the Communists. Hence, later they would call such folk Watermelons — Green on the outside, Red on the inside.
spartacus

yeah, Aunts too if the magnifying glass is big enough.
sayanything-6955

How are all these props in ND doing ? They are popping up every where lately.
sayanything-6955

I think they are a sham economically too, just curious why the squareheads props don’t run when its cold, I have not noticed ND weather “warming” much lately!
sayanything-21

There’s PORN on the Internet? Who knew?
spartacus

Just place giant magnifying lenses over the windmills, heat them naturally!
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Minnesota Windmills Don’t Work When It’s Cold

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